Al Quran Topkapi Manuscript
Year Written: c. early to mid 8th century
Language: Arabic
Script Type: Kufic
Current Location: The Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
Image credit: T. Altikulaç, Al-Muṣḥaf Al-Sharif: Attributed To ʿUthmān Bin ʿAffān (The Copy At The Topkapi Palace Museum), 2007, Organization of the Islamic Conference Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture: Istanbul (Turkey).
Like the Smarkand Kufic Quran, the Topkapi manuscript was often cited as the oldest Quran for many years. Recent research, however, shows that the Topkapi manuscript is at least a century younger than the oldest existing Quran fragments.
The Topkapi manuscript has been dated to about the early to mid 8th century and is a nearly complete text of the Quran. In that respect, it is most likely the oldest near-complete Quran in existence.
Also like the Samarkand Quran, the Topkapi manuscript is believed to be an original Quran commissioned by the third caliph Uthman in 651. Research has shown that this is not true and that the manuscript is over a century younger than Uthman’s Qurans.
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